This week, NYP TV Sports’ Andrew Marchand spoke with former UNLV coach Jerry Tarkanian. Tarkanian, 75, currently hosts “The Shark Tank,” a college-basketball show on Sirius Satellite Radio on Fridays.

Q: Who will win the national championship?

A: I think Connecticut will win it. I think they have the best team. I think Duke is real good, but Duke relies so much on J.J. Redick that if he just has a bad game and they are playing a real good team, they can get beat.

Q: Who could be a surprise team that could make a run in the tournament?

A: The first week of the season I picked Memphis. I had a radio show and I told all my Vegas friends, “Go down and bet on Memphis if you want a longshot bet.” At that time, the odds were 20-1.

Q: The selection show is this Sunday. Some teams play easier schedules than others. What is your feeling on that?

A: I think those who play a cupcake schedule should definitely be punished. UCLA, Syracuse, most of them are playing like a junior-high schedule. It is embarrassing.

Q: What is the most intriguing job that you almost took during your career?

A: The Laker job. I was offered it twice. I was first offered it in 1977. At that time, the Vegas people supported me through the NCAA [investigations] so they made me feel very loyal, so I didn’t take it, which was all right because I didn’t particularly care that much.

But in ’80, I would have been rookie the same year Magic Johnson was and the same year [Laker owner] Jerry Buss was. I’ve often wondered how that would have turned out. Maybe I would have gone and screwed it all up.

Q: The year after you won the national championship at UNLV, when you look at that Final Four game in 1991 that you lost to Duke, do you have regrets?

A: There were a lot of things that happened. First of all, Duke played great and we didn’t. Duke lost seven games, but they had three lottery picks on that team. They had [Christian] Laettner, Bobby Hurley and Grant Hill.

That UNLV team was the best team I ever coached. We didn’t have a close game all year. We were 34-0 when they beat us. Our closest game was nine points the whole year. That was the best defensive team I have ever seen in college basketball.

You looked at what those guys did in the NBA. Larry [Johnson] had a pretty good career in the NBA. Greg Anthony had an average career. Stacey Augmon hung in there a long time. We didn’t have Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins or Kareem or [Bill] Walton and Jamal Wilkes. We didn’t have [Chris] Webber/Jalen Rose. We didn’t have anyone like that. We just had a group of hard-working guys who played harder than anyone in the country and were unselfish.